- The classic French feet or "Les pieds.
- Smooth top (as it's bottom).
- Crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside.
If one will look at the French macaron, because of its' simple ingredients, one might think that it is also simple to make. Just like how some people look at life. A simple thing.
But then, to achieve a perfect (or almost perfect) macaron, it goes through a lot of process from measuring the ingredients, aging the egg white, beating it, folding it, blending it together, mixing it and whipping it.
On being crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside.
Under whipping or over whipping the ingredients of the macaron will only result in its' "hollowness." Just like in life. We go through a process of being beaten, folded, or whipped (literally or not) that make us feel "hollow." Empty. Void. Blank. Desolate. And tired.
We often experience things in life that we cannot avoid. Failed relationships, financial problems, career immobility, health issues, broken promises, burn out, and so on and so forth. These are the things that are beating us, things that are folding us, or things that are whipping us. The list goes on which makes us feel, furthermore, the hollowness that is eating us inside.
It makes us feel worthless.
Just like biting a macaron that has nothing inside but air.
I believe in life, transforming your feeling of being hollow into something chewy is always a choice.
Either you let experiences beat you, letting yourself cry a little or a lot but then always ready to stand up and face the challenges that life's throwing at you, heads on.
Or you let these experiences beat you, then you cry a little, then you cry more and you never stop crying. Never deciding to stand up and do something about it. Remaining where you are, beaten, and broken on the ground. Never giving yourself a chance to confront the unpleasant things that you are experiencing.
Treating yourself like a macaron that is cracked, flat, and hollow.
In order for us to transform into a tasty macaron, we should learn to accept that this beating, folding, or whipping is also a way of molding us or changing us. We can never experience the sense of being "crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside" if we don't undergo these experiences.
Again it is a choice. It is our choice. Use it as a learning experience or use it to intimidate you as you go through life's challenges.
On having the classic French macaron "feet" or "Les pieds."
The first sign of a good and almost-perfect macaron is having its feet. These feet were developed because the macaron was left for a few minutes to an hour outside, in-room temperature before putting them into the oven.
By doing this, macaron will develop a skin that will help them to grow their feet out when they are put in the oven.
That's why it takes time to bake macarons. Because you need to allow time to transform it before it is placed to the heat of the oven.
In my opinion, life is also like that, we should allow time to transform us first so that we can be better.
It is like learning to walk first before we could run.
It's like taking a step back, observe life, learn from experiences, and then move forward once again.
Most of the time, we are in a hurry to develop our own "feet," not knowing that forcing it will only hurt us.
Most of us will say that we cannot wait. Everything should be done now, immediately and no time to lose.
That waiting is a waste of time.
But if we never learn how to wait, how can we learn how to move forward?
If we don't wait, we don't allow time to align the stars for us to see.
If we don't sit back, we don't allow God to show his plan to us.
If we don't step back, we don't allow ourselves to reflect and choose the next best move for our life.
In this life, there are times that we need to haste, that's a fact.
But there are times that we should grant ourselves an opportunity to take a moment, breathe the fresh air, see the clouds passing by and feel the beauty that can change our life.
My husband always reminds me, "yes, we work to live but never allow yourself to live just to work."
On having a smooth top
Fortunate are those who made macarons for the first time and it came out perfectly as if they were doing it ever since. Those are the exception to the rules. The one that we call, beginner's luck. They don't need to go through the life that most of us went through.
Shifting the almond flour and sugar over and over again. Folding it into the beaten egg whites repetitively hoping that eventually, it will lead us to a smooth top.
Making macaron is always through trial and error. Never have I met someone who baked macaron in just one shot. Others have created more than thousand pieces in order to perfect the delicate French macaron. The battle cry of people making macaron is: try and try until you succeed.
Sometimes the macarons turn out hollow, with no feet, with cracks, or flat. And these do not limit the problems that one can encounter while baking "macarons."
Even the greatest chefs in the world went through this experience. But through making and re-making macaron, I know that they mastered the art of creating the authentic French macaron by now.
You can say that making French macaron teaches us another "life's lesson." That achieving success is always through hard work. Through repetitive experimentations of the unknown. By taking the risks to fail or to succeed through a series of trials and errors.
Only then we can be able to gain our "smooth top."
If we don't bet on anything in our lives, if we don't risk anything then we can never gain anything too.
On a last note, I just want to say that a "good-almost-perfect macaron," is not only dependent on the measurements and freshness of its ingredients (almond flour, sugar, egg whites, and vanilla), it is also dependent on the effort of the one who is making it.
The same goes for our lives. The reason that one is experiencing a good life (or a perfect life, if it exists) does not only depend on what we have, it is also dependent on the efforts that we give to make it a good life or an almost perfect one.
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